La Riche Directions – Mandarin Hair Dye – Review

After about 8 months of having jet black hair I decided I was sick of
looking ill if I ditched the makeup for the day and to be honest I just didn’t
like how dense and flat coloured black was on my hair.

Orange is my new choice of colour!! I know what you’re all thinking!! I was
asked by so many people ‘why would you choose to dye your hair orange/ginger!?’
…well because I like ginger hair and going a more orange tone will make my
hair slightly ‘arty’ looking. I rock alternative coloured hair!!

Where did I start?? So anybody with dyed black hair will know it is a nightmare
to remove. I used 2 packs of Colour b4 to remove the dye without damaging my
hair too much, however this product struggles to remove red pigment so my hair
was left red and I needed it as light as possible. So out came the bleach… 3
boxes of it over 2 days; not recommended as it turns your hair into spaghetti!!

Now my hair was blonde I chose to dye it firstly with an Olia dye which did
nourish my hair and make it look and feel healthier however I wasn’t happy with
the colour and it came out rather patchy!!
I topped up this bodge job with my La
Riche Directions dye in Mandarin.

I always buy my La Riche Dyes from Ebay as I have never been able to find them
on the high street and the website only sells the dyes in bulk, so unless you
want 48 bottles then i’d stick to Ebay. There are many sellers selling the dyes
and the more you buy the cheaper they get. I buy my 88ml dyes in packs of 4
which cost me just £14 including p&p (£3.50 a pot). Do note that these dyes
don’t come with gloves and using bare hands isn’t recommended unless you want
bright orange hands for a few days!!

The dye is a very deep orange almost red
tone when in the bottle, however when it is applied to the hair and more
spread out, it is very much just a dark orange.

As this dye is what’s known as a ‘veggie’ dye (no chemicals – it literally just
stains the hair) I always choose to leave this on overnight to let the dye
stain the hair as much as possible (whack it on, cover your hair in a plastic
bag followed by cling-film and cover your pillow with an old or dark coloured
towel!). This method will not over colour your hair, it can only go as dark as
the actual dye itself. Its a bit like food colouring!!

As this dye doesn’t lighten or penetrate the hair in a damaging way, it has its
best effect on pre-lightened hair. Obviously the lighter the hair, the brighter
and more intense the colour will turn out.
As I said above, I use this on already dyed hair to top up my natural hair once
it starts to fade so I don’t put my natural hair through anymore unnecessary
damage through using a permanent dye (I only use a permanent dye when my
roots become visible).

I do however use this dye on my platinum blonde extensions as they have already
been lightened and using a permanent dye on them seems like a silly idea to use
when I can use this veggie dye and cause no extra damage to the hair.

Here is an image of the colour of my extensions and then the results
from my test on them;

Pretty bright huh!?

And here is a photo of my very faded ‘permanently’ coloured hair and then
after leaving the dye on for just an hour; (first image is of the faded hair,
the following 3 are after colouring)

Not the best of photos I’m afraid as the
colour is quite hard to pick up. Definitely not as bright as the extensions,
but more orange than the faded mess I was putting up with before. The colour
has more of a yellow rather than red tone to it and this becomes more visible
after every wash.

The dye doesn’t touch my natural ash brown
roots at all however if your hair is naturally light or blonde, it may take a
little better. My hair on the whole is very much a solid colour with no
noticeable patchiness. Its covered all the blonder areas and the darker areas
are nicely covered too.

Being a semi permanent dye means this
colour should wash out after 6-8 washes. I found that it lasted about 3
washes on my hair however the lighter your hair was to start with, the longer
it will last.

This dye does transfer onto clothing, pillowcases and any other surface your
hair rubs against (I have rubbed my hair on walls like a crazy lady and
its transfers!!) however it washes out of material really easily (whites may
need a stain remover).

On the whole, this is a really good dye… just nowhere near as bright as
I was expecting and too yellowy for my liking. It would be ideal for those who
want a subtle orange tint to their light hair or for dip dying the dips of
lightened hair. Not really for us that want really bright ‘stand out from the
crowd’ hair.